Talking New MediaThe digital publishing website2018-02-15T14:38:48Zhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/feed/atom/WordPresshttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cropped-TNM-icon-32x32.jpgD.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=613202018-02-14T17:04:41Z2018-02-14T17:04:41ZThis website was shuttered on January 1, though it appears most PR agencies never noticed. The idea was to keep the stories live so that those Google links would continue to lead to a story. But the ‘Under Construction’ plug-in I was using did allow ...

]]>This website was shuttered on January 1, though it appears most PR agencies never noticed. The idea was to keep the stories live so that those Google links would continue to lead to a story. But the ‘Under Construction’ plug-in I was using did allow for that. Oh well.

But then something weird happened in mid-January and the whole site went down. There, in an instant, went eight years of content.

But it appears we have finally solve the problem and the TNM website is back live. And on Valentine’s Day. I like that.

Eventually, I’ll probably turn this into something else, like a simple blog. But for now, it will continue to look as you see it.

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=613222018-02-15T14:38:48Z2018-01-01T14:38:29ZThis website was launched in 2010 as a blog in order to talk about the publishing industry, digital media, and specifically the new iPad that was to be launched that April. (Hence the name, a kind of reference to those old talking folk songs.) After ...

]]>This website was launched in 2010 as a blog in order to talk about the publishing industry, digital media, and specifically the new iPad that was to be launched that April. (Hence the name, a kind of reference to those old talking folk songs.) After three years as a blog it evolved into a self-hosted news website.

But eight years is a long time for any digital news outlet. Especially one that is published virtually by one person (though I must thank the almost 200 contributors to the website).

TNM would continue on were it not for one simple fact: the publishing industry is not supported by the companies that sell into it. In eight years, this site has survived off of Google advertising and book sales, with only a handful of companies deciding it would invest in their own businesses. As someone who has been a newspaper and magazine publisher, and succeeded by serving the ad needs of industry clients, it saddens me the so few support our industry with their marketing dollars. (This is why those still publishing trade journals that cover books, newspapers or magazines now survive off or events.)

Still, it has been a fun ride. And now that the archives are back online — there was a while there when the site was offline due to technical issues — I can rest easy knowing that all those thousands of posts will remain available.

I’ve been in this business over 30 years, so if you know of any company in need of management or editorial leadership, please reach out. But in the meantime, thanks for reading Talking New Media!

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=613032017-12-29T15:18:39Z2017-12-29T15:15:51ZA recap of headlines from 2017, a year where the president of the United States attacked the media and journalists, where truth itself was up for grabs
The 2017 year is almost over and it looks, despite many predictions, that we might actually survive it. ...

]]>A recap of headlines from 2017, a year where the president of the United States attacked the media and journalists, where truth itself was up for grabs

The 2017 year is almost over and it looks, despite many predictions, that we might actually survive it. Maybe. But that doesn’t mean that the new year is something we look forward to.

In 2017 the Republicans failed to kill off the ACA, but managed to cripple it by ending the individual mandate. They also passed a deeply unpopular tax bill that slashes taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while giving others a small tax break. But for those who live in states with higher state and local taxes, and where property taxes are higher, the bill is already causing havoc as many homeowners rush to prepay their property taxes, knowing that they will not be able to claim them when they file their 2018 taxes.

In publishing, 2017 will be remembered as the year that Time Inc. and Rodale went away, when newspapers continued to bleed print advertising, and when large numbers of industry professionals lost their jobs. It was, in other words, the beginning of a new dark ages for publishing.

The Year at TNM:

January:

The time between the November election and the January inauguration was the lull. But the new administration got off to an ominous start when Sean Spicer’s first press briefing was a one-sided affair, with the soon to be jettisoned press secretary announcing that the crowds were the largest ever to attend a swearing in… period. Things went downhill from there.

The month also began a trend we saw all year: an big increase in media M&A.

The end of Wenner Media began in earnest this month with word that AMI was in talks to acquire US Weekly. Eventually the majority stake in Rolling Stone itself would be sold off. It was also a month where we lost Steve Buttry, and where Gannett began another round of cutbacks.

By the time March of 2017 rolled around, TNM had pretty much concluded that the digital edition was dead. Neither Apple, nor most publishers, nor even the vendors, were willing to work to make a go of it.

It was my belief that the digital edition would be an important part of the digital media’s future because it would allow for lower cost distribution and production, but would only succeed if publishers worked to create ad networks and sold the hell out of them. They did neither.

Apple certainly didn’t help. It killed off the Newsstand, which was flawed but fixable. And vendors arose to try to make a quick buck, and even the legitimate companies like Adobe and MagPlus never supported the industry (or this website) in such a way that would have shown they were serious about serving the needs of publishers.

Just what the new administration had in mind for business regulation became apparent in April as the new FCC chairman began efforts to kill off net neutrality. While Trump’s legislative record is meager, his impact on government agencies has been historic.

On May 17, Robert Mueller was appointed special council, instructed to look into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The appointment followed the firing of FBI director James Comey on May 9, a firing that the president himself admitted in an interview, was done to try and end the Russia investigation.

My wife’s nurse had to stand for 30 mins & administer a drug slowly through a syringe because there are almost no IV bags in the continental U.S. anymore. See, they were all manufactured in a Puerto Rican factory which still isn’t fixed. Meanwhile that stupid swollen prick golfs

The month of November will be remembered either as the month signs that the Democrats would regain control of Congrss became apparent, or as a minor blip. It will also be remembered as the month the FCC ended media ownership rules that have been in place for decades, allowing the consolidation of media ownership. The consequences of which will be catastrophic for the industry, in my opinion.

2017 was a horrible year for publishing. Yet it did not have to be. The economy, which nearly went into depression in 2008, has been slowly rebounding for the past eight years. Now the stock market is booming, not because business is so good, but because shareholders are doing so good. It is a time of greed and corruption. When the president can make millions while in office, and Congressman are cashing in, and cashing out.

The next year will see major events, maybe war, maybe a Constitutional crisis. The year started with TNM saying that the biggest threat to our industry was the incoming administration. It ends with a similar warning, but slightly different: the biggest threat to your industry in 2018 is complacency, the willingness to go along with what one knows is wrong.

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=612962017-12-29T13:09:10Z2017-12-29T13:09:10ZMorning Brief: Impromptu interview reads as though it was rushed, not allowing for proper follow-up questions, as president again claims to be most brilliant man on planet
The New York Times is drawing fire from some quarters following an impromptu interview with the president, excerpts ...

]]>Morning Brief: Impromptu interview reads as though it was rushed, not allowing for proper follow-up questions, as president again claims to be most brilliant man on planet

The New York Times is drawing fire from some quarters following an impromptu interview with the president, excerpts of which were published online last night. Criticism involves the failure of the reporter, Michael S. Schmidt, to follow-up questions asked of the president.

But the transcript, and description of the interview, do appear to back-up the impression that the interview was a rushed affair, with Schmidt trying to get in as many questions as possible.

During an impromptu 30-minute interview with The New York Times at his golf club in West Palm Beach, the president did not demand an end to the Russia investigations swirling around his administration, but insisted 16 times that there has been “no collusion” discovered by the inquiry.

“It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position,” Mr. Trump said of the investigation. “So the sooner it’s worked out, the better it is for the country.”

…Mr. Trump disputed reports that suggested he does not have a detailed understanding of legislation, saying, “I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most.”

Later, he added that he knows more about “the big bills” debated in the Congress “than any president that’s ever been in office.”

TRUMP: Yeah. Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what’s going on — and in fact, what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been. Great congressmen, in particular, some of the congressmen have been unbelievable in pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is. So, I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion.

And by the way, I didn’t deal with Russia. I won because I was a better candidate by a lot. I won because I campaigned properly and she didn’t. She campaigned for the popular vote. I campaigned for the Electoral College. And you know, it is a totally different thing, Mike. You know the Electoral College, it’s like a track star. If you’re going to run the 100-yard dash, you work out differently than if you’re going to run the 1,000 meters or the mile.

Apple yesterday delivered an apology regarding its slowing of older iPhones, and offered customers an opportunity to have their out-of-warranty iPhone batteries replaced for a discounted rate — reducing the cost from $79 to $29.

The apology came after it was reported that Apple had been slowing down older iPhones via a software update. The company said it was done to prevent older iPhones from unexpected shutdowns, though the accusation was that it was an attempt to force customers to upgrade their older iPhones to newer models.

Apple:

A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

About a year ago in iOS 10.2.1, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE. With the update, iOS dynamically manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown. While these changes may go unnoticed, in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance.

Customer response to iOS 10.2.1 was positive, as it successfully reduced the occurrence of unexpected shutdowns. We recently extended the same support for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 11.2.

Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions.

More News:

NY Post: Hearst to double frequency of some magazines in 2018AdAge: Newspapers’ Bad News in U.S. Gets Worse, Courtesy of Trade SpatCNBC: Amazon is planning a push into digital advertising in 2018, challenging Google and FacebookIBT: Drexel Professor George Ciccariello-Maher Resigns After Receiving Threats Over Controversial Tweets

]]>Trena De Landrohttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=612752017-12-28T14:49:02Z2017-12-28T15:15:09ZGuest Column: Trena De Landro, VP, Publishing & Media, North America at MPP Global, says that personalized user experiences are the ones that get repeated, and should be goal for every publisher
For more than a decade, customers have been shifting their reading habits to ...

]]>Guest Column: Trena De Landro, VP, Publishing & Media, North America at MPP Global, says that personalized user experiences are the ones that get repeated, and should be goal for every publisher

For more than a decade, customers have been shifting their reading habits to consume more and more digital content. As a result, traditional media companies are being forced to follow the readers and implement new strategies to market digital, alongside traditional print, to grow revenues.

L’Équipe, founded in the 1960s as a daily newspaper, focused solely on sports and was one of the publications facing this obstacle. Three years ago, L’Équipe took a positive step toward their future and moved into the digital realm.

To successfully monetize the digital medium, publishers must market it to new consumers. It is important for publishers to remember that not all readers are the same and therefore, not all potential subscribers will respond to the same offers. Instead of simply trying to sell content to readers, the goal should be to spend time continually understanding those consumers.

L’Équipe tested and implemented a wide variety of new marketing strategies to grow their digital presence alongside their traditional print media — over 100 different offers to engage and retain their sports fan clients online. These offers included selling individual articles as well as bundling multiple articles together, in order to provide greater consumer choice. They were tried, tested and evaluated to determine their efficacy and conversion rate.

The individual articles or micropayments strategy worked best with casual readers. Less than 30 percent of buyers of individual articles made repeat purchases, but these one-time transactions were a successful new revenue stream.

If a publisher has a heavy mobile readership, micropayments may be a strategy worth considering. 85 percent of L’Équipe’s individual article purchases were processed through mobile devices.

Free trials, where payment details were required to access the offer, proved the most successful in terms of post-trial conversions. This offer led to a more than 50 percent uplift in subscriptions for L’Équipe.

Even if offers do not succeed in the exact way a publisher hopes, most offer some value to the media brand. For example, free subscriptions in exchange for removing ad-blockers or a one-month free trial without collecting payment information did help with L’Équipe’s email and data acquisition, but did not translate into subscription lift.

One of the great advantages to digital publishers is the speed and flexibility with which they can introduce innovative offers and incentives to monetize content. L’Équipe was able to create and test over 100 different offers to analyze how each impacted subscriptions, and importantly, which offers led to the highest conversion rates. The publisher found that their free trial period offer significantly increased conversions and can now boast reaching over 300,000 accounts within three years of launch. L’Équipe’s experience drives home the point that today’s consumers demand personalized experiences and content distributors are most successful when tailoring appeals to a specific demand.

The positive results L’Équipe has achieved can be attributed, in part, to multivariate testing. It is vital for publishers to test offers as part of an overall strategy to lower customer acquisition costs and reduce subscription churn. Publishers must recognize that applying a centralized, 360-degree view of the individual subscriber and improving the customer experience along each step of their journey is key. Publishers should pay attention to their readers’ consumption habits, geographic location and consumption habits (e.g., content-types accessed, frequency of access) and create personalized offers to incentivize conversion into paying customers. By adopting a customer-centric point of view, publishers meet their readers where they are, making it easy for them to access the kind of content they want at a price that represents a fair value exchange.

In summary, personalized and streamlined user experiences are the ones that get repeated and that should be the goal for every publisher – to develop and strengthen customer relationships that are enriched over time and with each engagement. As publishers apply techniques to better identify, acquire and engage their readers, they will reap the rewards of new and reliable revenue streams that aren’t tied directly to advertising and contribute to sustainable, recurring revenue growth.

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=612822017-12-28T20:57:50Z2017-12-28T15:13:03ZThe Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore late yesterday filed a complaint to block certification of the special election which resulted in the first Democrat to win Senate seat from Alabama in 25 years.
“The purpose of the complaint is to preserve evidence of potential election ...

]]>The Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore late yesterday filed a complaint to block certification of the special election which resulted in the first Democrat to win Senate seat from Alabama in 25 years.

“The purpose of the complaint is to preserve evidence of potential election fraud and to postpone the certification of Alabama’s Special Election by Secretary of State John Merrill until a thorough investigation of potential election fraud, that improperly altered the outcome of this election, is conducted,” Moore’s campaign said.

The complaint, like the Moore campaign itself, is very odd. It contains the results of a polygraph test administered by “a licensed member of the Alabama Association of Polygraph Examiners, which Moore claims proves “that I did not know, nor had I eveer had any sexual contact with any of these individuals” — referring to the claims made by several women that Moore had inappropriate contact with them when they were minors.

The complaint also, according to Bryan Lyman, state government reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, includes page after page of comments from Breitbart News readers, who are Moore supporters.

Also this is the first lawsuit I’ve ever seen that includes the comments section of a Breitbart article. Like, the whole thing. Running for five pages. #ALSENpic.twitter.com/LNPbIpWo6y

Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon eagerly supported the Moore campaign, despite the allegations against Moore, and was able to get the president to do the same at the end of the campaign.

But Breitbart’s editor-in-chief, Alex Marlow, admitted in an interview with CNN’s Oliver Darcy that the allegations against Moore were credible in his view, and that the positive coverage and support for Roy Moore was motivated by a desire to protect Donald Trump.

“I think that’s the playbook here. And I think it’s part of the reason why it was so important for Breitbart to continue our coverage of the way we covered it… and for Steve in particular to hold the line the way he did for — I think part of it is because it’s not just about Judge Moore, it is not even just about establishment, anti-establishment,” Marlow told CNN’s Darcy. “It’s about what’s coming next for President Trump.”

Despite Breitbart and the president’s best efforts, Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones by over 22,000 votes, but Moore has yet to concede the election.Moore first said that he would not concede until after all the overseas military ballots were counted (they amount to just over 300 ballots); now Moore is claiming fraud, saying that because the eventual turnout exceeded the estimates by the state’s secretary of state, that this shows that there were inappropriate ballots cast on election day.

Update: Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has certified the election — but, of course, that did not change the position of Roy Moore who is milking this for all its worth.

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=612672017-12-28T14:18:40Z2017-12-28T14:17:00ZMorning Brief: But social media outlets, like Twitter, continue to fight the effort to combat trolls and bots because their business model depends on this destructive traffic
The year is almost over and it is time for reflection for many. But for TNM, the biggest ...

]]>Morning Brief: But social media outlets, like Twitter, continue to fight the effort to combat trolls and bots because their business model depends on this destructive traffic

The year is almost over and it is time for reflection for many. But for TNM, the biggest regret of 2017 was that it failed in its attempt to launch a second website in 2016. It was that failure that has haunted TNM all year.

For those unaware, a little background.

With the presidential election in November of 2016, it was clear early in 2016 that this would not be a normal election, not with Donald Trump sweeping the GOP primaries. So rather than turning TNM into a politics website by constantly referring to the election season, I decided to launch a second website to cover the intersection of politics and the media. Struggling for a name, just as I did for TNM, I chose PoliMedia.press.

What PoliMedia wrote about was what the media was saying about the presidential campaign. It was completely objective in that every story would feature clips from multiple media outlets on both sides of the media landscape. As a result, there were a lot of excerpts from Breitbart and other Trump supporting websites. But when newspapers soon began writing editorials about the dangers of a possible Trump presidency, the troubles began. Soon, the new site had trouble staying online due to DDoS attacks. Also, the numbers of trolls commenting about Trump, and criticizing the media for being unfair to their candidate, was hard to handle.

With the election winding down, and with traffic at low levels due to the amount of time the site was offline, I decided to shutter PoliMedia. But what was crystal clear to me was that the 2016 election was being meddled with in an unprecedented way, and the media was hesitant to talk about it, while at the same time there seemed to be no hesitation in talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails. Journalists were dealing with trolls and bots, yet were strangely silent on the matter, using the tired theory that the story shouldn’t be about them. Yet the story was, and is, about the media, about the attack on our free press.

If that sounds partisan, then so be it. PoliMedia was simply a reflection of politics and the media itself. A perfect example was a column in The Washington Post that took Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to task for daring to air her opinions regarding a Trump presidency. The columnist, who still is featured, has since been a fierce critic of the new president, yet in his own way, worked to make that presidency possibly by trying to shut off the warnings.

As 2017 started I said that it would be impossible to continue TNM as before, not when the greatest danger to our industry in not digital competitors, but the direction of the country. And as the year has progressed, more and more reports have been filed about the extent of Russian meddling via social media, and how our social media companies are either ignoring the problem outright, or worse, cynically taking advantage of it in order to be able to claim to be growing their audience and member files.

Jailed Russian says he hacked DNC on Kremlin’s orders and can prove it

A jailed Russian who says he hacked into the Democratic National Committee computers on the Kremlin’s orders to steal emails released during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign now claims he left behind a data signature to prove his assertion.

In an interview with Russia’s RAIN television channel made public Wednesday, Konstantin Kozlovsky provided further details about what he said was a hacking operation led by the Russian intelligence agency known by its initials FSB. Among them, Kozlovsky said he worked with the FSB to develop computer viruses that were first tested on large, unsuspecting Russian companies, such as the oil giant Rosneft, later turning them loose on multinational corporations…

…The newest allegations are potentially significant. If the FSB did in fact direct Kozlovsky, then it debunks Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that his government had nothing to do with hacking that all major U.S. intelligence agencies put at his feet. It also calls into question the view of a hack that was conducted as a closely held, organized FSB campaign directed from central offices. Kozlovsky says he worked largely from home, with limited knowledge of others and that the political hack was just part of larger relationship with the FSB’s top cyber officials on viruses directed at other countries and the private sector.

Using a crowdsourced database of impersonator accounts, carefully curated by us to avoid any false positives, the bot patrolled Twitter and interjected whenever impostors tried to insinuate themselves into a discussion. Within days, our golem for the digital age had become a runaway success, garnering thousands of followers and numerous press write-ups. Most important, we received countless thank-yous from alerted would-be victims.

The impersonator trolls seethed. Some tried changing their user names to evade the bot (it didn’t work). Others simply reverted to their openly neo-Nazi personas. A few even tried to impersonate the bot, which was vastly preferable from our perspective and rather amusing.

Then the problems began — but not from where you might expect. The Nazis realized they couldn’t beat the bot, so they started mass-reporting it to Twitter for “harassment.” Just as they duplicitously cast themselves as minorities, they disingenuously recast our response to their ongoing abuse as harassment.

Twitter sided with the Nazis.

I’ve often said that weekend New York Times is not the same as weekday New York Times. It is on the weekend or Monday that one finds rather odd stories that seem to contradict what appears in the pages of the paper most days.

Well, the holidays at most publications mean either a complete shutdown, or that a skeleton crew will take over. And as they say, when the cat is away the mice will play.

How do you boost Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings with Trumpites? That’s a tough task, considering the enduring popularity of the whole “lock her up” movement. Yet one approach would be to line up a crew of young urbanites, put champagne flutes in their hands and have them recite snarky and demeaning New Year’s resolutions for the twice-failed presidential candidate and former first lady.

And that’s precisely what the people at Vanity Fair’s “The Hive” have done, to considerable social-media backlash.

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=612572017-12-28T15:14:01Z2017-12-27T17:21:24Z‘The Objects that Power the Global Economy’ is the first book from the Atlantic Media business brand, and examines ‘largely invisible’ objects that changed the global economy
The US Postal Service brought a couple of eagerly awaited Christmas presents in the form of new books ...

]]>‘The Objects that Power the Global Economy’ is the first book from the Atlantic Media business brand, and examines ‘largely invisible’ objects that changed the global economy

The US Postal Service brought a couple of eagerly awaited Christmas presents in the form of new books published by not-so-traditional publishers. One book, by the business website Quartz, offers a unique take on the hardbound book, while the other by the Catalan master Jordi Savall, combines the book form with two super audio CDs.

The Objects that Power the Global Economy is the first print book published by the Atlantic Media digital property, and is now available through Amazon.

I assumed, before I received the book, that it would have also been printed through Amazon as part of its CreateSpace platform, one easy way for many magazine and newspaper publishers to get into print book sales. But that is not the case here, and one look through the pages of The Objects will make the reason obvious.

The book, printed in Italy by Grafiche dell’Artiere, features many inserts and a couple fold outs. One section, The Power of the Millisecond, was “brought to you” by Qualcomm.

In all there are ten sections that look at objects “largely invisible to the ordinary observer, each driving a radical change in the global economy.”

The second section is labeled Reefer, and refers to the invention of the refrigerated shipping container, not the late afternoon smoke. It is a good choice to make when explaining otherwise ordinary things that have transformed commerce. The great Berkeley wine merchant Kermit Lynch, for instance, was the first to make sure that his wines, hand selected from small French producers, made it to California is the same state as when he first tasted the wine in the caves of the winemaker (he also worked to convince his winemakers not to filter the wines for the American market).

“Quartz’s Objects reimagines storytelling about business and the global economy for print,” the company says of its project. “In Objects, readers can mine bitcoin by hand, explore a fold-out map of all the satellites orbiting the earth, and study a periodic table of the elements necessary for new technologies. Objects includes contributions from business visionaries like Bill Gates. Each chapter contains stories and interviews from around the world, interactive data visualization, and lush original artwork by globally renowned photographers, illustrators, and designers including Mathery, Fanqiao Wang, AnNam Young, Cait Oppermann, and one anonymous North Korean painter.”

The concept and editorial direction is credited to Caitlin Hu, Quartz’s geopolitics news editor, and Lauren Brown, special projects editor for Quartz.

The book’s first run, announced in September, sold out in two weeks. You can order the book yourself ($35) through Amazon or through the Quartz website here.

While Quartz’s first book is from a US-based publisher, but printed in Italy, the latest book-CD project from Jordi Savall is strictly as Spanish (or Catalan, if you will) project.

Savall is now 76 and has produced well over 100 recordings, but in the past decade or so he has regularly produced major projects that have been published as book-CDs. The first of these was Don Quijote de la Mancha which featured music from the late 16th and early 16th century.

His latest proeject is Venezia Millenaria 700-1797 and will be officially released on January 12, though one can order and receive it now direct from Alia-Vox, Savall’s label.

As the name implies, Savall’s newest project looks at the great Italian city of Venice, telling its history and importance via the pages of the book, and its music through its two CDs.

Like all of Savall’s book-CD projects, it is an impressive piece of artistry.

Some of the book-CDs have, at times, felt a touch academic, others are pure joys to listen to as music (my favorite being his Albigensian Crusade project Le Royaume Oublié).

These book-CDs are available as MP3 downloads, but acquiring the works this way would be to miss the book experience, complete with historical backgrounds on both the music and the subjects explored.

If you love music, and you love to read history, these projects are not to be missed and well worth the investment (these beautiful book-CDs are not cheap, but at between $30 and $60 they are definitely worth every penny).

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=612442017-12-27T14:53:20Z2017-12-27T13:43:56ZMorning Brief: The slowest news week of the year has such a strong sense of dread hanging over it thanks to the investigation into the 2016 election
The week between Christmas and New Years is traditionally the slowest of the year, and so far we ...

]]>Morning Brief: The slowest news week of the year has such a strong sense of dread hanging over it thanks to the investigation into the 2016 election

The week between Christmas and New Years is traditionally the slowest of the year, and so far we can be grateful that this year is so far proving no different. Still, there is a sense that one stupid move involving justice department could change all that.

This is the week that publications roll out stories that normally would be spiked, or worse, repost stories like this one — Why Prince George Wears Shorts All the Time — that should never have seen the light of day to begin with.

But it is also a time when journalists and commentators remind us that there may be big stories we are forgetting about, or downplaying. After the 2016 election it is hard to believe that the biggest of these, that the Russians meddled in the presidential election, isn’t universally seen as a major crisis for a democracy.

On Christmas Day, The Washington Post featured two stories on this theme. It was an odd choice to choose Christmas Day to post the stories — did they do so because they knew it would be a slow news day and so would stand out, or because they wanted to bury them? The long feature from Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe, in particular, seems like something that deserved bigger play, but maybe the editors of the Post saw it as only offering a recap of what was already known.

Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options

The miscalculations and bureaucratic inertia that left the United States vulnerable to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election trace back to decisions made at the end of the Cold War, when senior policymakers assumed Moscow would be a partner and largely pulled the United States out of information warfare. When relations soured, officials dismissed Russia as a “third-rate regional power” that would limit its meddling to the fledgling democracies on its periphery.

Senior U.S. officials didn’t think Russia would dare shift its focus to the United States.

“I thought our ground was not as fertile,” said Antony J. Blinken, President Barack Obama’s deputy secretary of state. “We believed that the truth shall set you free, that the truth would prevail. That proved a bit naive.”

There is a perception among the media and general public that Russia ended its social-media operations following last year’s election and that we need worry only about future elections. But that perception is wrong. Russia’s information operations in the United States continued after the election and they continue to this day…

…In a single week this month, Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman.

USA Today: America is on the brink of a historic break with Europe, thanks to TrumpThe Washington Post: Israel’s transport minister wants to name a new Jerusalem train station after Trump

The New York Times, too, published a big expose during the Christmas break, though this one landed two days before the holiday.

Emily Steel interviewed the founders of Vice — and surprise, surprise — found that they regretted created a sort of frat house work environment, though having to pay settlements because of that work environment may be what they really regret.

At Vice, Cutting-Edge Media and Allegations of Old-School Sexual Harassment

Vice and its co-founder and chief executive, Shane Smith, have long been open about the company’s provocative atmosphere. But Vice is now struggling to reconcile its past — famous for coverage of streetwear, drugs and sex, as well as its raucous parties — with its emergence as a global media company backed by corporate giants like Disney and Fox.

In a statement provided to The Times, Mr. Smith and another co-founder, Suroosh Alvi, said “from the top down, we have failed as a company to create a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone, especially women, can feel respected and thrive.”

They said that a “boys club” culture at Vice had “fostered inappropriate behavior that permeated throughout the company.” The company distributed a longer version of the statement to its employees on Saturday.

Probably the biggest reevaluation happening today regards the Internet itself. The rise of social media on the web has a lot of people wondering if we really are better off today with such a powerful way to communicate. Like nuclear power and weapons, maybe we are simply too primitive a species to handle such a powerful thing.

For the last twenty years, I believed the internet prophets of old. I worshipped at the altar of Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelly. I believed that the world would be a better place if everyone had a voice. I believed that the world would be a better place if we all had no secrets.

But so far, the evidence points to an escapable conclusion: we were all wrong.

Or, to be generous, if we weren’t wrong, we were so far off on time scale that those who bought into the vision were mislead into thinking that the benefits would come in their lifetime. They aren’t going to.

]]>D.B. Hebbardhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.comhttp://www.talkingnewmedia.com/?p=612382017-12-27T12:55:36Z2017-12-22T18:00:00ZTNM will return on Wednesday, December 27 (or sooner should something weird happen), so enjoy a happy, safe holiday, and thank you for reading Talking New Media
The Christmas break is upon us, and so TNM will shutdown until Wednesday of next week (unless something ...

]]>TNM will return on Wednesday, December 27 (or sooner should something weird happen), so enjoy a happy, safe holiday, and thank you for reading Talking New Media

The Christmas break is upon us, and so TNM will shutdown until Wednesday of next week (unless something weird comes up), taking Tuesday off for Boxing Day (UK), or Return the Onesie Pajamas to Macy’s Day (US).

As I have written before, I miss working at a daily newspaper the day before Christmas. Few people know how to party quite like newspaper people. Magazine people can party, but they tend to make sure all the copy is in and edited before being to tie one on. At newspapers that isn’t possible, so the next day’s paper can sometimes look pretty odd.

Of course, the culture has changed. Going out for drinks at lunch the day before the Christmas holiday begins is no longer an acceptable thing. I get it. Still… those memories remain.

Now, time to break out the bishop**:

Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, “before a man can say Jack Robinson.”

You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows went at it. They charged into the street with the shutters — one, two, three — had them up in their places — four, five, six — barred them and pinned then — seven, eight, nine — and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

“Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. “Clear away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here. Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer.”

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night.

– Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol

** Recipe:

half dozen oranges

2 lemons

20 or more whole cloves

1/4 tsp cinnamon (more, if desired)

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp mace

1 piece fresh ginger root, peeled and cut into chunks

1 bottle red wine

1/2 cup sugar, or more to taste

1 bottle ruby port

I’d throw in a cinnamon stick or two, as well. Then gently heat the punch up and ladle it into mugs. It’s quite delicious, but I warn you, a nasty headache usually occurs soon after the second or third mug of the stuff.